


Where He's Coming From

by imagineteamfreewill



Series: The Switch [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Monsters, Referenced Auction of Humans, Referenced Forced Dehydration, Referenced Forced Nakedness, Referenced Forced Starvation, Referenced Sensory Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagineteamfreewill/pseuds/imagineteamfreewill
Summary: The reader tells the boys about her time in the compound and she and Sam spend more time together, resulting in some interesting discoveries.
Relationships: Sam Winchester/Reader, Sam Winchester/You, reader x sam - Relationship
Series: The Switch [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1339267
Kudos: 17





	Where He's Coming From

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my tumblr of the same name on November 20th, 2018.

“Ready for what?” Dean asked. He looked between you and Sam and you dropped your gaze, fiddling with the engraved silver ring you’d found in the bottom of one of the antique dresser drawers in your room.

_Et pugnare bene dura amare. Fight well and love hard. _You didn’t know who the ring had belonged to—part of you didn’t want to ask, lest you bring up a hard topic for one of the boys—so you’d simply slipped it on your finger without saying a word. Neither brother nor Cas had said anything about it, and you figured you were in the clear about it.

Inhaling deeply, you closed your eyes for a moment before exhaling and beginning your story. “I got caught breaking into an old, boarded up gas station. I was trying to get some food because I’d run out. It hadn’t been too long since I’d eaten when the demons found me, but I was still exhausted from running. I’d been camping out in the woods the day before and had a close encounter with a kitsune, or at least I think it was a kitsune. I’m not sure, I hightailed it outta there before I really had a good look at her. Once I started running, I didn’t stop until I saw that gas station. It was the first bit of hope I’d had in a while, and—”

“How long ago was this?” Dean asked.

You looked up from your ring, finding his green eyes focused intently on you. Sam was typing with one hand, the other one holding up his head, and it took you a moment to do the math in your head. By the time you’d figured it out, Sam’s eyes were trained on you as well.

“About two months ago, I think,” you replied.

Dean pulled his own laptop closer to him and pushed it open, his lips turned down in a thoughtful frown. “You saw a kitsune two months ago and that wasn’t the first thing you told us when you got here?”

Annoyed, you sat back in your chair and crossed one leg over the other, your arms crossed over your chest. “I had other things on my mind, Dean. Excuse me if I didn’t immediately give you a run-down of all the monsters I’ve seen over the past few months.”

“So what happened after they caught you?” Sam interjected, trying to steer the conversation away from the argument that was bound to happen between you and his brother.

Taking a deep breath, you uncrossed your arms and sat up in your chair again, refocusing yourself. “They took me to one of their holding facilities. I think Cas said it was in Maine, but I don’t know where exactly. They drug you for the drive.”

Sam nodded. “What happened when you woke up?”

“When I woke up,” you repeated, running a hand over your jeans and swallowing thickly as the horrific memories made bile rise in your throat. “When I woke up they put me in this small, dark room. No food, no water, no clothing, no heat, no light… no human or monster contact.”

“How long?” Sam asked, his voice soft.

You didn’t look up from your jeans as you answered him. “Three days.”

“And then?”

“And then they threw a water bottle in through a slot in the door. I think it was another few days before they gave me another bottle, and then a day or two after that they stuck me in a different cell. I was in the second cell for at least a month, I think. I gave up on keeping track of time after a while.”

Sam was quiet as he processed your words. Finally, he looked over at you and asked, “What then?”

“Then,” you continued, taking a deep breath and fidgeting with your ring again, “I waited. I gathered information from the people who brought me food and water, and from the monsters that were guarding me, then got put in the deprivation cell a few more times for being defiant and for asking too many questions.”

“What kind of monsters?” Dean questioned.

You shrugged. “All kinds. The most important one was Liz.”

Dean frowned. “Liz?”

“He was a giant lizard guy. I nicknamed him Liz,” you replied, unable to hide the tiny smirk that formed on your face. You glanced up at the boys to see that Dean was grinning a little as well, and he caught your eye before you shifted your gaze to Sam, who was typing again.

Sam shifted in his seat, sitting up straighter and dropping both hands to the heavy oak table in front of him. “A giant lizard guy? Was he— Was he some kind of— Of mutant or something? Did he have any supernatural powers?”

You couldn’t help but smile a little more at the bright curiosity that shone in Sam’s eyes. You yourself had spent days on end trying to figure out what exactly Liz was. Your endless stream of questions had only earned you more suffering, but in the end you’d figured out that Liz was more or less just what you’d thought in the first place.

Shrugging, you replied, “He was a lizard. A giant, humanoid lizard. Forked tongue and everything. He even had the reptilian eye thing goin’ on.”

Dean was grinning from ear to ear when you looked over at him and you chuckled in response. “Dude!” he exclaimed, slapping one hand down on the table and scooting forward in his seat so he could meet his younger brother’s eyes. “Like a mini Godzilla!”

“That’s not what we need to be focusing on, Dean,” Sam huffed, but he was still smiling as he turned his attention towards you once more. “Can you tell us about the other monsters that were there? And the other hunters?”

It took you another hour to fully explain everything that the boys wanted to know. You told them about the few hunters you’d come into contact with during your time at the compound, and about the monsters that had been a part of your imprisonment. You also told them about the auction and the way that hunters were transported out of the prison-like building. Sam was horrified at what they’d done to you, you could tell, but you’d carefully avoided eye contact with him for most of that part of the story. The memory of Castiel-possessed-Sam helping you out of the plastic coffin that the monsters had shoved you into was still vivid, and the image of Sam’s eyes trained on your naked body had been something you couldn’t shake as you’d recounted your memories to both brothers.

Eventually, you fell silent, mulling over everything you’d said as you combed your mind for any helpful detail you might have missed. Dean had long since finished the beer he’d been nursing when you first sat down and Sam’s laptop had died five minutes before.

“You’ve been through a lot,” Sam finally said, and you nodded dumbly in response. “If you ever need to talk…”

“I won’t,” you replied, your words clipped. The short-tempered words slipped out of your mouth before you had the chance to stop them, but you’d already trembled through the memories once today. You didn’t want to dwell on them any longer. All you wanted was for them to be gone.

Without any conscious thought from you, your hands pushed your chair away from the table and you stood, your legs sturdy beneath you despite the fact that you still felt weak after talking about everything you’d survived in the past few months.

“Okay. Do you want to have dinner with us?” Sam asked. His words were careful and you avoided his gaze, though you felt his eyes trained on you. You could picture the expression on his face—compassionate, understanding, sympathetic, but with a hint of pity. You’d given that look to people a million times before and you’d seen Sam give it to you, just as you’d seen Dean and Cas give it to Sam when he’d first stumbled into the kitchen with you after waking up from his possession.

“No,” you told him. “I think I’m just going to go to bed now.”

Without another word, you walked out of the library, your body working on autopilot as you headed towards your bedroom. You closed the door behind you, turning the lock into place before climbing into bed and reaching over to turn the lamp off with one hand, the rest of you already safely underneath the covers. Darkness shrouded the room a moment later and you closed your eyes, burrowing yourself underneath the thick, warm blankets the brothers had supplied you with.

Sleep didn’t come anytime soon, however, and you found yourself still lying awake after what seemed like hours. Sam had come and knocked on your door; you’d watched him through the grate that took the place of the bottom door panel. He’d knocked, stood for a moment, and left when you didn’t reply, probably assuming you were fast asleep. As he walked away, he’d said something about talking to you in the morning, most likely to Dean, and you sighed and rolled over at the thought of still being awake. Insomnia had never been an issue for you, not even in the compound or on the long drive to Kansas, but now it seemed as if it would be your new greatest enemy.

* * *

Days later, you still hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep. Sam had noticed it, of course, as had Cas, but neither one of them mentioned it, if only out of politeness. Dean was nowhere to be found, and when you’d asked about him, both boys had simply danced around the question, giving you vague answers that did nothing to resolve your curiosity.

You were training in the gym when you saw Dean for the first time in a week, and you were surprised to find that he looked more chipper than usual.

“How much coffee have you had?” you sighed, wiping the sweat from your forehead before steadying the punching bag in front of you.

Dean chuckled and glanced over at you as he selected a pair of kickboxing gloves from the shelf against the wall, strapping his hands into them with practiced movements. They were snug around his knuckles and he flexed each hand to make sure that the gloves weren’t too tight.

“None,” he replied as he adjusted a one of the velcros. “You?”

“More than I probably should, but what’s a little caffeine?”

Shrugging, Dean took his place on the other side of the bag, holding it steady and then nodding for you to begin again. You watched him carefully for a second before starting up your rhythm once more. Time stood still as you punched the dark green canvas, your hands thudding against the sturdy bag with each hit. Your emotions from the compound—anger, fear, confusion, anxiety, helplessness—all came back as you let your mind wander, and after a few moments you channeled everything into one powerful kick. You’d stifled everything up until this point, and the kick came out more forceful than you’d originally intended. Dean let go of the bag, stumbling backwards and allowing it to swing and swirl on the chains that suspended it from the concrete ceiling.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Dean groaned. He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged his shoulders up and down, rolling them backwards a second later.

“Sorry,” you grumbled. Silently scolding yourself for being too rough, you began to unstrap your gloves, tugging them off your hands and then curling and uncurling your fingers. You tossed them on the wooden bench nearby before moving over to the padded mats on the floor, lying down on your back to begin the sit-up sequence you’d started earlier in the week to distract yourself from the thoughts that had been plaguing you.

“We know what it’s like to be prisoners,” Dean told you, still standing in his spot by the punching bag. “We’re here if you need to talk.” You ignored him, focusing instead on the burn that was beginning to form in your abdomen as you crunched out sit-up after sit-up.

“Y/N, stop,” Dean sighed. When you didn’t, he came over and grabbed your wrist, pulling your arm out from behind your head and effectively stopping you from continuing the work out.

Irritated, you yanked your hand away from him and sat up, turning so that you were facing him. “What?” you snapped.

“What I’m trying to say is that we’ve all been there. If you keep bottling this stuff up, you’re gonna snap. Hell, I’ve snapped before myself. It’s not good for you, and it’s not gonna be good for anyone who’s around you when it happens,” he told you, holding your gaze as he spoke.

“So I just won’t be around anyone else when it happens,” you huffed as you pushed yourself up off the mat and crossed over to where you’d set down your water bottle. You grabbed it and headed out the door, ignoring the sound of Dean’s footsteps behind you.

“Y/N!” he called, following you through the winding hallways as you made your way back to your room. You were halfway there when he grabbed your shoulder and spun you, caging you against the wall with his hands. He started to say something to you but panic flared up in you at the thought of being trapped again and you quickly jerked your knee up, shoving it into his groin as hard as you could.

Dean shouted and fell away from you, allowing you to sprint down the hall and lock yourself in your bedroom. You pressed your back against the door, closing your eyes as you tried to catch your breath and calm your nerves. Your hands were trembling and your mind kept replaying the moment Dean grabbed you, the image of him being replaced with the monsters that had first locked you up in their compound.

There was a knock on the other side of the door and you flinched, moving away from it as fast as you could.

“Y/N?”

It was Sam and you closed your eyes, combing your fingers through your hair and clenching tight fistfuls of the strands for a brief moment.

“What?” you asked, your eyes still closed as you tried to keep your voice steady and neutral.

“Are you okay? I heard Dean yell and he said—”

“Just go away,” you replied. Your voice cracked and you cursed it for betraying you, for letting Sam know that you were weak. “Please,” you added after a moment, knowing that being polite probably wouldn’t hurt.

Sam hesitated, but a second later you heard him say, “Okay.” You listened as the sound of his footsteps disappeared and then let out a shaky breath.

Silently, you moved over and sat on the edge of your bed, dropping your head into your hands. You’d been so sure that you could suppress the memories of your time in captivity, and the auction where your future had been decided by everyone but yourself, but now you weren’t so sure of it.

Another knock came from the hallway and you pressed the heels of your hands against your eyelids. “Please just leave me alone!”

“I was bringing you dinner.” You lifted your head a little at the sound of Cas’ gentle voice. “I knew you were training earlier and I thought you might be hungry. I can leave it out here, if you’d like.”

The words took you a second, but finally you managed to say, “No. No, um, I’ll unlock the door. Just give me a second.”

Cas didn’t reply. You knew he’d be patient, so you glanced at your reflection in the small, warped mirror on the wall. Your hair was a mess and you were sweaty, but you looked normal otherwise, and you quickly sent up a prayer thanking God for allowing you to look normal when you felt anything but.

Opening the door, you gave Cas a tight smile when he held out the plate to you, piled high with a large sandwich and chips. You took it in silence, moving to close the door again, but before you could he said,

“Sam said that you told them about your time in the compound and about how I found you.”

You nodded, avoiding eye contact and trying to look like you were inspecting the sandwich to see what he had put in it. It was your favorite, of course, and you wondered if he’d simply observed you making sandwiches before or if he’d meant Cas knew even the little things, like sandwich preferences, when he said he knew all about you.

“Y/N, you don’t need to be ashamed about reliving your memories like this. Sam and Dean both struggle with their mental health. As I’ve said before, Sam deals with other issues besides not sleeping and eating enough when he’s focused on something.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, still not looking up.

“Can I come in?”

After a long moment you stepped aside, holding the plate out of the way so that Cas could walk in without bumping into it. You closed the door behind him and set your food on the nightstand, sitting down on the bed while he settled into your desk chair, just like Sam had only days before.

“Sam’s story is not mine to tell,” Cas began, “but there are some things you might want to know about him. It might make it easier to talk to him if you know where he’s coming from.”

You hesitated. You knew what it was like when someone went digging into your past without your permission, and you hated to be the person who was doing that to Sam. On the other hand, if Sam was supposed to be your soulmate…

“Okay,” you breathed out. “Tell me the important stuff, but _only_ the important stuff.” You held Cas’ gaze as you spoke, and he gave you a small smile before nodding.

“You don’t want to invade his privacy,” he concluded, and you nodded earnestly in response. “Sam would call that admirable.”

“Most people would, Cas.”

Cas considered your words for a moment before saying, “I could explain it all to you, but it might be easier for you to read it.”

“Read it?” you asked.

“Do you have a laptop?”

You nodded and reached under your bed, sliding it out from its spot on the floor, then held it out for Cas. He took it and turned it on, and after a few minutes he turned the screen so that you could see.

Raising an eyebrow, you asked, “Supernatural?”

“They were books written by a prophet who was… _is_ God.” It took you a second to process his words, but by the time you’d formed the question you wanted to ask, Cas was already continuing. “They explain all of Sam and Dean Winchester’s lives from the moment their mother was killed by a demon. Some of it is… more detailed than necessary, and I’m not sure how Sam would feel about you reading those parts, but this will explain it all to you.”

He held the laptop out for you and you took it gingerly, setting it in your lap. “Thanks, Cas.”

Cas smiled softly as he stood. “Of course. I’ve been trying to watch over you ever since you got here—at least, as best as I can, considering that my grace is diminished.”

“You still haven’t told me what that means,” you said, looking up at him. “I don’t really know about angels, so I don’t have much context…”

“That’s not important right now. You’ve got a lot of reading to do, Y/N,” he replied.

Nodding, you watched Cas as he left your room, shutting the door behind him. You didn’t bother to get up and re-lock the door. Instead, you scooted back on your bed until your back was against the headboard and, after grabbing your plate from the nightstand and taking a bite of the sandwich Cas had brought, began to read.

There were over twenty-five books and it took you a long time to get through them. The unpublished ones took you even longer to read, seeing as you had to comb through grammatical errors and oftentimes circle back to earlier chapters when the plot got messy. It was well past midnight by the time you finished, and you fell asleep with your laptop on the bed next to you, curled around it with your plate behind your back.

That was how Sam found you in the morning when he came to wake you. The book index was still pulled up on the screen when he moved your computer out of the way and shook you awake.

You blinked up at him, confused and bleary-eyed as he stared down at you, a slight frown turning down the corners of his lips.

“What?” you asked groggily.

“You were reading the Supernatural books?” He sounded offended and hurt, and you quickly sat up and rubbed your eyes, ignoring the crumbs that fell onto your rumpled sheets when the mattress dipped and made them spill off your plate.

“Um, yeah,” you replied, unsure of how to explain yourself.

“How did you know about them? How did you find them? I thought…”

“You thought what?”

Sam shook his head. “I thought a friend pulled most of them down, but I guess not. Did you Google me?”

Smiling a little, you shook your head and closed your laptop, setting it on the nightstand and putting your empty plate on top of it before stretching and yawning, then rubbing your eyes again.

“No, um, Cas told me about them. He thought it might… help me to get to know you guys a little better, I guess. That’s not quite how he put it, but…”

“But Cas doesn’t always say things the way we do?” Sam finished, a small, understanding smile on his face. You nodded and chuckled a little when he did. “I’m just, uh, a little embarrassed I guess. They’re, uh, they’re a bit personal. I guess you know everything now, huh?” He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish, guilty, and sad all at once. How one man could show so many emotions in his eyes was a mystery to you.

“Yeah. I didn’t think they’d be that… detailed.” You yawned again.

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, breakfast is ready. Thought you might want it while it’s hot.”

“Is that your way of changing the subject?” you grinned, and Sam smiled back at you, the sadness in his eyes mostly gone now.

“Maybe. Did it work?”

“Hmm… That depends. What’s for breakfast?”

“What do I have to make to convince you to come eat with me? And Dean,” Sam quickly added, as if he didn’t think you’d want to come eat if it was only him.

_Quite the opposite,_ you thought as you reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear.

“Just promise me that it’s hot and I’ll be right there,” you replied. Sam’s smile widened almost imperceptibly and your heart skipped another beat. You scolded it in your head, then watched him leave, glancing over his shoulder at you before he shut the door.

Sighing, you climbed out of bed and brushed the crumbs from your sheets before pulling on a pair of thick, warm socks to ward off the chill of the bunker’s concrete floor. You were about to leave your room and head to the kitchen when the tiny voice in the back of your mind began to sound off warning bells. Quickly, you hurried back to the sink on the wall and check your reflection in the mirror above it, sighing in relief when you saw that there was nothing noticeably grungy about your appearance, despite the fact that you’d practically fallen asleep on your plate a few hours before.

Once you were satisfied with the way you looked, you tugged open the door and made your way to the kitchen. Sam was pouring out two mugs of coffee when you stepped through the doorway, and you smiled at the sight. It had been a long time since you’d had a sit-down breakfast with anyone, with the exception of Cas on your initial trip to the bunker, and something about it felt utterly domestic. It was almost as if you could pretend the Switch had never happened.

“Good morning,” you greeted as you slipped into your chair on the long side of the table.

“Good morning to you too,” Sam replied, setting the coffee pot down. He sat in his own chair and began to eat.

“Where’s Dean?” you asked. You picked up your own fork and knife, cutting up the meager amount of scrambled eggs Sam had put on your plate. It wasn’t enough to keep you fed until lunch, at least not without the coffee and the two small sausage patties you normally ate as well, but the boys’ supplier still hadn’t gotten back to them. Eventually, someone was going to have to go out and find some more food, which would be risky.

Sam stopped cutting up the sausage on his own plate, glancing at you for a split-second before going back to what he had been doing. “He decided to stay in bed for a little while longer.”

You nodded and went back to eating, smiling a little to yourself as you enjoyed the silence. You hadn’t gotten to spend much time with just Sam, and even though it should have been awkward, it wasn’t. It was comfortable. He didn’t mention anything about how you’d read about his entire life the night before, and you didn’t bring it up. You didn’t want to ruin what seemed like could be the start of a really good friendship. You also ignored the little voice in the back of your head that kept whispering to you that this was what it was like to be with your soulmate. Instead, you simply enjoyed your food… and Sam’s company.


End file.
